Regulation. Frustration. Those words have become synonymous in
the minds of many homebased business owners attempting to right
years of zoning regulation wrongs. Michelle Bloom, owner of
Minneapolis-based Creative Business Consulting, recalls the moment
last May when she heard that the Minneapolis City Council had
reversed a zoning ordinance she'd spent three years rewriting
and revising with city planners. "I was angry, tremendously
frustrated, even sad," says Bloom. "In the business
world, something like that just wouldn't have happened. I went
home that day and said, ` That's it. I'm
done.' "

However, by July, Bloom had recovered from her disillusionment
and resumed her mission as director of the Minneapolis Homebased
Business Association's Zoning Task Force. "I felt very
strongly that this was an important fight for so many
reasons," she says. "The council realized after the fact
that they voted the way they did because they were uneducated. We
asked for meetings with all of them. We came in with the facts, the
numbers, the economic impact."

By November, the council had reversed its May vote. "For
the most part, we got what we asked for," says Bloom.
"The ordinance ended up being a fair and balanced way to
regulate while still allowing homebased business owners to
flourish."

The effort to strike this balance has led to a jumble of
emotions nationwide, as homebased business owners clash with the
world of local politics. "It can get nasty, because local
governments aren't prepared to officiate over [neighborhood]
squabbles," says Stephen Lang, founder of the Mount Evans Home
Based Business Association in Evergreen, Colorado. "Most
government [officials] are sitting on their hands waiting for
something to hit the fan."

Minneapolis is one of a growing number of cities that has chosen
to deal with the issue. After a four-year-long process and three
revised ordinances, the current Minneapolis statute allows one
nonresident to be employed by a homebased business, sets hours the
business can be open to the public, and restricts the number of
clients visiting the home if the traffic proves detrimental to the
character of the neighborhood.

Minneapolis' ordinance is far from extreme when compared to
the laws other cities have passed. In the worst cases, operating a
business from your home is flat out illegal. In other cities,
ordinances regulate the types of businesses you can run.
"That's a trap you can't win with, because there's
no way to list every business in the world that's
acceptable," says Lang, who also has a problem with cities
that regulate the amount of residential space that can be used for
business activities.

Likewise, homebased business owners should realize that
regulation isn't necessarily a machine they must rage against.
"We want the regulations," says Lang. "Otherwise,
you have some homebased business owners who will take advantage [of
the lack of regulations], and then the whole community rises up
against us."

"The reality is we get regulated, and we need to deal with
it," says Bloom. "And, if the system works at all, the
city regulates out of concern for the people. Homebased business
owners must continue to have the economic impact we have as a
population. Let's go forth with that."

Friend Or Foe?

Duston Jensen has had to close down homebased businesses. He
seeks them out, regulates them, even taxes them (retroactively, no
less). Yet Jensen, the manager of the tax and license division of
Tacoma, Washington, claims to be acting as a friend to homebased
businesses. "If all I did was enforce the law against those
people who knew what the law was and who voluntarily complied, tax
rates would go up for everyone," says Jensen. "I just
want to be fair and equitable. I'm going to shoot from the hip
and treat you the same, whether you're a multimillion-dollar
corporation downtown or a $1,000-a-month homebased
business."

In 1994, Tacoma decided to enforce its existing homebased
business regulations, which allow clients to visit homebased
businesses by appointment only, outlaw retail sales operations in
residential neighborhoods, and restrict the storage or display of
goods in yards. Any homebased business found in violation can be
slapped with a citation of up to $1,000 and/or 90 days in jail, or
even shut down. "Action will be taken," promises Jensen,
who built a nationwide reputation among municipal tax officials for
his aggressiveness.

The rub is that Tacoma residents are now required to buy an
additional license simply to run a business out of their homes.
Most homebased business owners pay an annual fee of $122 (which
includes a $50 increase for being homebased). Although the fee may
not be exorbitant, it has entrepreneurs up in arms. Some resent
being singled out and taxed just for being homebased; others
believe the city merely sees them as a juicy new source of revenue,
considering the 4,600 homebased businesses registered in Tacoma
generate more than $400,000 in annual revenue for the city. "I
will agree and admit that the costs have increased," says
Jensen. "But that is primarily to cover the costs of
compliance efforts. It's an issue of spending time and effort,
and providing staff to go out and enforce these rules and
regulations. I think it's unfair to put that burden on
storefronts."

When Jensen uncovers a homebased business that is not registered
with the city, he taxes them, charging them back taxes for up to 10
years if they were unaware of the business tax and back to 1951 if
they knowingly avoided paying the taxes.

Can Jensen feel homebased business owners' pain? "I
understand these taxes may be burdensome when they're first
discovered," he says. "Granted, it might be a surprise
that all of a sudden the owners are faced with years of taxes, but
it's something they should have looked into."

One For All

Rather than cowering, homebased business owners are the very
ones who should be proactively pursuing zoning regulations.
Self-destruction? More like self-preservation, says Stephen Lang,
founder of the Mount Evans Home Based Business Association in
Evergreen, Colorado. "Homebased business owners must step up
and suggest to local governments that they need to look at their
ordinances," he explains. "Otherwise, when problems
happen, emotions get involved and then it's very difficult to
get things done."

Prepare for the world of red tape . . . and make the
most of city politicians' accessibility. "Take your
commissioner to lunch," Lang suggests. "Tell him [or
her], `There's a growing wave of this problem across the United
States, and it's coming here soon. You've probably heard
something about this--wouldn't you like to be prepared?'
"

Pet Peeves

You're surrounded by hair balls, wet noses and wagging
tails. The sounds of rhythmic scratching and jingling collar tags
reverberate in the background. Meows and barks are commonplace.
Where are you?

Nope, it's not the vet's crowded lobby; more likely,
it's the thriving home base of a business near you. That's
because a host of homebased entrepreneurs with pets--too many to
count, really--don't mind if Fluffy or Fido (or both) stretch
lazily across keyboards and monitors, or sleep peacefully on
important documents during the workday. In fact, many wouldn't
have it any other way.

"It kind of adds a different dimension to your
business," says Rochelle Balch, founder of Glendale, Arizona,
computer consulting firm RB Balch & Associates Inc. And she
should know--her 20-pound orange tabby, Stripey, once accidentally
saved and printed an entire file of payroll documents with just a
swish of her tail against a trackball.

Yes, furry friends do have their downsides: Hair floats about
the office, jamming equipment and scratching CDs; dogs bark and get
into the trash when you're on the phone. And then there's
the time Balch's cats decided to gnaw on a stack of envelopes
before a mailing: "There were probably about 100 envelopes
that went out with little cat teeth marks on them," she
remembers.

It's not like her clients have any complaints--but one
recently called her company's help desk in a panic: What to do
when the cat throws up on your keyboard? Well-versed and
well-prepared, this computer consultant was able to answer with
confidence: Go buy a new one, of course!

The Geek's Guide

By Debra Phillips

Can you run a business today and not have an Internet
site? Well, maybe. But if you dare bypass the electronic world
altogether, you're certainly giving your competition an
unnecessary advantage--one that might prove fatal. The good news:
You don't have to be a Bill Gates clone to plug into the
Internet and its many opportunities.

Enter The Geek's Guide to Internet Business Success: The
Definitive Business Blueprint for Internet Developers, Programmers,
Consultants, Marketers, and Service Providers (Van Nostrand
Reinhold, $22.95 paper). Written by Bob Schmidt, The Geek's
Guide simplifies the process of going online. Assures Schmidt,
"Today, the Internet is no longer the province of rocket
scientists."

Whether you wish to launch an Internet-related business or
merely incorporate the Internet into your own company, The
Geek's Guide offers a good grounding in the basics. "There
is every reason to believe that Web development will grow to become
a permanent force in business and marketing communications,"
Schmidt argues, "every bit as important as graphic design,
advertising agencies and public relations firms."

Don't be left out in the cold--electronically speaking, that
is. The Geek's Guide will show you how not to get your lines
crossed.

Tech Schmeck

By Jeff Berner

In 1894, Mark Twain plunked down $125 for a Remington Model I
typewriter. The first American author to buy one, Twain later
wrote, "The machine has several
virtues . . . One may lean back in his chair
and work it. It piles an awful stack of words on one page. It
don't muss things or scatter ink blots around."

We've come a long way in 100 years. In fact, the personal
computer you buy today to manage your homebased business is more
powerful than the computers that landed astronauts on the moon in
1969. But as our technology becomes more powerful, so does our fear
and frustration.

A recent issue of the Mayo Clinic's HealthQuest newsletter
reports that nearly 60 percent of all respondents are
"technophobic." The research found that when an
electronic device fails, two-thirds of the people studied blame
themselves. Technophobia is the dirty little secret leaking out of
the high-tech revolution, and homebased workers who have no
technical support staff must come to grips with this debilitating
"disease."

But there's a price to pay for the convenience afforded by
high technology. Many devices, from cell phones to computer modems,
become a source of constant interruption and repair. And--let's
be honest--few software releases are truly ready for use by
ordinary mortals.

"Even if you have a feel for these tools, you usually have
to learn a given software application when you're under
immediate pressure to produce," says Dean Ritz, a
Seattle-based business and licensing strategies consultant.

We all want to keep doing what we do best--writing,
architecture, research--while gaining productivity and leisure
time. You may be able to set the clock on your VCR, but can you set
it to record the right program on the right channel at the right
time--using those instructions written in some vaguely familiar
language?

One way to address the problem may be to take things slowly.
Ritz, for example, has made a practice of learning the tools he
needs in a leisure-ly manner and then using them for specific
tasks.

Like Ritz, we, too, must learn to come to terms with technology
at our own pace. Only by sticking to our own rhythms can we make
these machines work for us--not the other way around.

Bluffer's Guide To Technology

Backups: Copies of your text, graphic and musical files,
databases, etc., that are similar to a carbon copy of work done on
a typewriter, or Xerox-type copies. You should back up your files
onto a floppy disk or removable cartridge on a regular basis to
safeguard against system crashes, power outages, fire, theft and so
on. Try to store backup disks with vital, irreplaceable files in a
separate place, far from your computer, such as in your briefcase
or a safe deposit box, or in a fireproof box.

MHz: Megahertz is the speed rating of a com-puter system. Right
now, an 80 MHz machine is adequate, but if you can afford something
rated at 133 or faster, get it. A computer rated at 300 MHz will
blow your hat off! Speed isn't so important if you're
mostly doing word processing, but graphic software and large
databases require more speed.

CD-ROM drive: A CD player that has a pro-gram, an encyclopedia
and/or music (all of these combined are considered
"multimedia"), etc. It's a "ROM" storage
device because it's "Read Only"--you can't
"write" to it or change it. But some are fully
interactive, and by cooperating with your computer, they give the
feeling of being customizable.

Scanner: A device that lets you funnel photos, newspaper
clippings and other materials into your computer. Vital for
photographic manipulation and storage, scanners are also useful for
storing things you need but don't want to keep in paper form.
In the case of scanned text, Optical Character Recognition (OCR)
software will let you word-process most articles, letters and other
text files you've scanned.

Software programs: These are like movie scripts. They are
endless lines of code that tell the computer, for example, "If
the user presses the Control Key and the `F' key at the same
time, activate the `Find' function," allowing the user to
find a key word, a file title, a name or anything else stored on
the hard drive, floppy disks or removable cartridge.

Laser printer: Also available in black-and-white and/or color.
A very precise technology and, as with inkjet printers, the more
expensive ones produce incredibly high-resolution type and
graphics.

Modem: Connects a computer to a telephone line to access
e-mail, send computer-generated faxes, surf the Internet or
auto-dial phone calls.

E-mail: Text and other files sent or received over a modem.
It's very fast and very convenient.

The World's Shortest Computer Literacy Course

Let's take a look at some of the most common computer terms
and, in the process, get an idea of how a computer works. This will
take about three minutes. Pain-free. Guaranteed.

First, think of what you had for breakfast this morning. Got it
in mind? OK, that's your RAM at work--your Random Access
Memory. You pointed to the part of your memory that contains what
you want to remember and scanned the information stored there. It
then "displayed" your breakfast memory in your mind's
eye. Computers have little RAM chips where memories are stored only
while the computer is turned on. "Random" doesn't
mean by accident, like a roulette wheel. It means you can point at
random to any item in memory and display it on the screen or
printer.

The other kind of computer memory is the ROM chip. ROM stands
for Read Only Memory, which means that only the computer reads the
program; you can't fiddle with it or change it. ROM chips
contain instructions a little like your autonomic nervous system,
which, though you don't think about it, does the
"housekeeping" chores of your body, such as breathing and
growing hair. The ROM chip is the network of circuits that is
always in place to make the computer work for you. You use the RAM
to put in your information--say, word processing or accounting. You
can write, rewrite or erase this kind of memory if you wish. You
then save your work that's dancing around in RAM onto your hard
drive or floppy disks. When you turn off the computer, RAM dies,
but the work is saved.

Anything you add to your computer system, such as a hard drive
for storing software and saving data (it's like a huge file
cabinet), a modem to connect the computer with another via phone
lines, a printer or a scanner, is a peripheral.

The hardware is the computer, the printer and so on. The
software is the program, the commands that make a dumb machine into
a "smart" word processor, an accounting machine, a
telecommunications system or the "brains" behind a
robot.

Floppy disks are the magnetic disks used to store information.
Hard drives are the turntables that can store much more data than
floppies can.

An interface cable connects two pieces of hardware, such as your
computer and your printer. Interfacing software is a program that
lets one computer talk to another computer or another device, such
as a scanner.